The Philippine National Drug Formulary (PNDF) is an integral component of the
Philippine National Drug Policy, aimed at making available and accessible, essential
medicines of proven efficacy, safety and quality at affordable cost. It's formulation by the
Department of Health (DOH) through the National Formulary Committee (NFC), formerly called the National
Drug Committee, has been mandated by R.A. 6675, otherwise known as the Generics Act of 1988. The PNDF Volume I, the Essential Medicines List, is a major step towards
rational use of medicines in the country. The medicines are selected with due regard to public
health relevance, evidence of efficacy and safety and comparative cost‐effectiveness. The national
list of essential medicines is a subset of registered medicines divided according to different
levels of care. A carefully selected limited list of essential medicines leads to higher quality
of care, better management of medicines including improved quality control, more cost‐effective
use of health resources and ensures regular supply of essential medicines,
resulting in real health gain and increased confidence on the health system.

The 7th edition of the PNDF Volume I has maintained basically the same
objectives and organization as in the previous editions. However, measures have been adopted to
simplify the listing by limiting the numbering to a maximum of three, whenever possible.
Further, the NFC has adopted the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation to replace the word
"drug" with "medicines". The algorithms for deletion and addition of medicines have been
followed strictly and the evaluation of the efficacy and safety by an unbiased agency, the
National Drug Information Center (NDIC) has been made a requirement for the decision making
process. The NFC followed the same consultative and participative process in its formulation
through a series of deliberation meetings with different panels of experts from the medical
schools, Philippine Medical Association, various specialty and subspecialty societies and government
and private hospitals. Inputs from the pharmaceutical companies and other stakeholders have
also been considered.

A major revision in this 2008 edition is the incorporation of the WHO listing
of immediate release solid oral dosage forms of multisource (generic) pharmaceutical
products/active ingredients which should be subjected to in-vivo bioequivalence studies (list B
medicines). Forty five (45) medicines have been added to the PNDF, while thirty six (36) medicines
have been deleted based on the approved guidelines and criteria. This 7th edition includes
a total of 627 medicines, 351 in the core list and 276 in the complementary list...